Lib Dem ‘facts’?

Living in Nether Edge/Sharrow, I recently received a Liberal Democrats annual report”, which is in effect a local election campaign leaflet.

Under the heading “Look at the facts”, a histogram shows the state of the parties making up Sheffield Council.

If you look at the relative size of the blocks then you would understand the council to be made up as follows:

Labour: 44 per cent

Lib Dems: 40 per cent

Green: 11 per cent

UKIP: 5 per cent

The actual make-up of the council based on councillors is:

Labour: 70 per cent

Lib Dems: 20 per cent

Green: 5 per cent

UKIP: 5 per cent

I appreciate that analysing the share of the vote may give different figures but I would be surprised if that would explain the large disparity between reality and the Lib Dems’ view of the world or “facts” as they call them.

And they do refer in the diagram to size of groups in the council and not the share of votes cast.

So far from being “facts”, the histogram appears to be a quite dishonest portrayal of the current situation in order to persuade people to vote for them on a false pretence.

And if you accept this as being unreliable then you have to ask how many other statements in the leaflet are also not to be believed.